Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/09/news-of-the-times-pearl-harbor-attacked-americans-ready-for-sacrifice.html
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It is amazing that these people don’t understand that this is exactly what they sound like.
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Perfection. Right down to the black-n-white news-reel.
Parallel self-experience: in the early seventies my middle school started up its first Russian language class, (as part of a sister city program). Most of the neighbors in my lower middle-class wonder-bread community went @#$n nuts on my parents for allowing me to take such an obvious commie plot class. Those neighbors all looked exactly like these fine gentlemen of a recent photo:
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Would they even care?
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Would they care that their parents and grandparents would be ashamed of them? I don’t know.
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The notion of our leaders asking for real collective sacrifice in order to respond to an emergency, and society responding by shaming those who try to shirk their responsibilities, is so beyond imagining at this point it’s incredible. We suffer from 9/11 brain, where the most patriotic “sacrifice” we could imagine (and the only one asked of us as a society) is to go out shopping and not let our normal routines change.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this scheduled transmission to bring you an announcement of national importance from the White House in Washington D.C. Ladies and gentlemen? Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States…
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Someone in the UK had a “Blitz” version of this along the lines of: “It’s the individual’s choice if they have their lights showing or not!” It feels like the better analogy - it requires the minimum of effort, and the “personal choice” involves the deaths of your neighbors…
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I remember something similar from decades ago, a British satirical piece on how the “Dunkirk Spirit” would manifest itself in modern times with Thatcher supporters.
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Hahahahasobsobsob
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I missed this before posting my own comment but it something I’ve been thinking about in that context of WWII. Our experience in WWII has always been held up as sacrosanct among small-c-conservative people in this country as the ideal example of what our country is capable of accomplishing when pulling together and living up to our better ideals.*
But looking at the fundamental way in which Trump has taken over the GOP and is able to whipsaw them into betraying any number of their (purported) cherished values, I wonder what would happen if Trump challenged that American mythos of the Good War and told his cult that we were the bad guys and those people should feel like suckers for saving grease and not going on vacation? Is such a thing even that far fetched given what we’re seeing?
*notwithstanding all ways in which messy reality is left out of the history books, it’s something I happen to agree with in very broad terms
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We’re fighting the last threat, aren’t we? Patriotically refusing to allow our routines to change?
I guess in 20 years we eagerly put on masks in response to whatever the current threat is.
Since it will likely involve climate catastrophe, the mask might not be a terrible match.
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Here’s an essay along similar lines:
One thing Bolling missed:
Attack? What attack? The ships are still there, untouched. Imagine FDR telling Congress that. Imagine Americans believing him. Now look around.
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That always struck me as surreal. At the same time people were being encouraged to go about their normal activities, this massive security infrastructure was implemented, including such things as a special form of identification if you want to fly domestically. (COVID delayed the full implementation of Real ID. Sheesh, even the name of that is Orwellian.)
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Yeah. I mean the allies didn’t go to war to save Jewish people but the perception the Nazis were wrong was fully correct. It’s a bit more complicated with the Japanese empire as there you are fighting for white empires. And while it was the Soviet Union that basically beat Germany with comparatively small contributions from others it was the US army that saved Western Europe from the Red Army rolling until it got to the sea. I don’t know if they would have stopped there for long.
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I don’t know that I fully agree with that. I’d argue that Imperial Japan was functionally equivalent in moral horror and depravity to Nazi Germany–they managed to make European colonial treatment of the territory it conquered to look benevolent by comparison (that’s not a defense of European colonialism, but just a recognition that Imperial Japan was that bad). There are some glaring examples of cognitive dissonance for the US in Asia you can point to, BUT it’s also true that FDR was not a fan of European colonialism in general and was not interested in fighting a war to protect their Asian colonies.
And, not for nothing, but Imperial Japan did declare war on the US.
(hope that doesn’t come off as well…actually… unpleasantness; I am just fascinated by this period and am fundamentally incapable of not discussing it when it comes up)
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